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Albert Bierstadt
Albert Bierstadtwas a German-American painter best known for
his large, detailed landscapes of the American West. In obtaining
the subject matter for these works, Bierstadt joined several
journeys of the Westward Expansion. Though not the first artist to
record these sites, Bierstadt was the foremost painter of these
scenes for the remainder of the 19th century.
Bierstadt was part of the Hudson River School, not an institution
but rather an informal group of like-minded painters. The Hudson
River School style involved carefully detailed paintings with
romantic, almost glowing lighting, sometimes called luminism.
Albert Bierstadt was born in Solingen, Germany. His family moved to
New Bedford, Massachusetts, in 1833. He studied painting with the
members of the Düsseldorf School in Düsseldorf, Germany from 1853
to 1857. He taught drawing and painting briefly before devoting
himself to painting. Bierstadt began making paintings in New
England and upstate New York. In 1859, he traveled westward in the
company of a Land Surveyor for the U.S. government, returning with
sketches that would result in numerous finished paintings. In 1863
he returned West again, in the company of the author Fitz Hugh
Ludlow, whose wife he would later marry. He continued to visit the
American West throughout his career.
Though his paintings sold for princely sums, Bierstadt was not held
in particularly high esteem by critics of his day. His use of
uncommonly large canvases was thought to be an egotistical
indulgence, as his paintings would invariably dwarf those of his
contemporaries when they were displayed together. The romanticism
evident in his choices of subject and in his use of light was felt
to be excessive by contemporary critics, a charge that continues to
be leveled by many of today's art historians. His paintings
emphasized atmospheric elements like fog, clouds and mist to
accentuate and complement the feel of his work. Bierstadt sometimes
changed details of the landscape to inspire awe. The colors he used
are also not always true. He painted what he believed is the way
things should be: water is ultramarine, vegetation is lush and
green, etc. The shift from foreground to background was very
dramatic and there was almost no middle distance.
Nonetheless, his paintings remain popular. He was a prolific
artist, having completed over 500 (possibly as many as 4000)
paintings during his lifetime, most of which have survived. Many
are scattered through museums around the United States.
Because of Bierstadt's interest in mountain landscapes, Mount
Bierstadt in Colorado is named in his honor. Another Colorado
mountain was originally named Mount Rosa, after Bierstadt's wife,
but it was later renamed Mount Evans after Colorado governor John
Evans.
In 1998, the United States Postal Service issued a set of 20
commemorative stamps entitled "
Four
Centuries of American Art", one of which featured Albert
Bierstadt's "The Last of the Buffalo".
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